I don't know if I accept Khan's framing of, even though I haven't won any cases I have scared off potential mergers and that is a win. I think the US already leans too heavily on tying everything up in courts forever.
3 years ago that would have just been rubber stamped.
Their work on non-tech stuff has probably been even more effective, too.
yes, because companies have decided to consider courts as a cost to do business instead of a regulator they must not piss off at any cost. the courts in that capacity will simply be abused, especially as these fast moving tech companies can make billions beofore a case shuts it all down.
Definitely needs to be some reform to how punishment works, especially retroactive costs.
“Sometimes, you know, the companies decide that they’re going to abandon the merger,” Khan said. Stahl asked if abandoning a merger amid the FTC’s scrutiny was a win, to which Khan said, “That’s right.” https://legal-mag.com/ftcs-lina-khan-defends-merger-and-acqu...
If adobe merged with figma that would be catastrophic for that domain. Prices would skyrocket, quality would invariably fall off, and innovation would stagnate due to lack of competition.
Part of having a free market is maintaining it. You can't have a free market if it's constantly consolidating into a monopoly or pseudo-monopoly. This is bad for the products, for the market, and for the consumer.
The keyword in that last sentence is market. Plenty of people will argue what the FTC is doing is stifling economic growth - but it's the opposite. Anti-competitive behavior stifles economic growth in the long run, so preventing it allows smaller companies to grow and innovate. Keeping slow moving giants on life support and de-facto welfare is not good for the economy.
There're a few problems with this:
1. Our lawmakers are incredibly inefficient, and many dedicated their lives to ensuring new laws don't get passed. Doesn't matter what the law is, they're career "blockers"
2. Our courts are not unpartisan, and many are conservative-leaning, and they'll simply continually strike down laws until they make it up and up and then the extremely conservative supreme court blocks it. This has been Texas' strategy.
What's wrong with that? Who still watches TV (either OTA or from satellite) in this age, except for elderly people who haven't figured out how to use the internet? This seems like people complaining about the consolidation of companies in the landline telephone market. It's a dying market, so of course the companies still hanging on are going to merge so they can save costs and squeeze the few remaining customers more.